"Cleaning Fees" listed separately, deceptive AirBnB

[Nu0]

AirBnB is a joke with published rates. Hosts lowball on the nightly rate, then charge $70 for a cleaning?  That's for one night or 5.
Looking at a room in Nassua, $80 for the night, $69 cleaning = $149. Seriously, pathetic excuse for transparent pricing.

This site asks us to be nice to each other, how about being nice to travellers by being honest. Any Host can lowball the rate and rack up the cleaning fee. Anyone else agree this is deceptive?

They need to include all fees in pricing. 

Another host lists a $100 fee and $29 cleaning fee = $129.

It's impossible to compare without going through each listing.

And this is a good service?

[Kelly1095]

nevermind

[Nate419]

AirBnB is a indeed a  joke with published rates. I don't understand the idea behind a lowball nightly rate, then charge a sky high cleaning fee.
Some rooms have cleaning fees that are several times the cost of a single nights stay in the room Yes it is pathetic 
This is the first time I used  air bnb and Im not sure I will again I came into this thinking air bnb was this fantastic alternative to expensive hotels and its not. Maybe it was in the beginning But now everyone on air bnb thinks they are a Hilton.  All these hosts are doing is pushing people away and back to just using hotels at least with them its a square deal upfront and you can often more times than not cancel with a hotel and receive a refund not just a fractional refund like air bnb does. People will catch on after a while and these deceptive practices will hurt air bnb and their hosts      

[Rick3036]

hey i just got a room....says $49 a night and $150 cleaning deposit...thats $200 FOR ONEEEEE NIGHT...THIS IS FCKINGGG **bleep**TTTT I WONT BE DUPED LIKE THIS AGAIN

[Heather658]

Airbnb could eliminate this issue if they would list properties by total cost for a one night stay. This is essentially the same issue that was going on with Ebay when sellers started listing things for $1 with an insanely high shipping cost so that they could avoid the Ebay fees. Ebay caught on and started charging their commission off the total amount. Airbnb does charge off the total amount, but in this instance, hosts are doing it for the search ranking. Order them by the total and the silliness will stop AND the guests won't have so much price research to do before choosing a space.

[Myrna46]

I got into an altercation with a host for leaving a bad review because her "cleaning manager" stated that her home was left "messy".  Her cleaning manager didn't provide any photos just saying that it was left a mess which was not true, so the owner left a bad review. We cleaned the kitchen and I guess we knocked over a lamp and a crystal because he sat in one of those unstable wooden round chairs and I guess some items fell but nothing out of disrespect. She went on to say we were disrespectful but it was just an accident. Anyways we cleaned! wash dishes and put our crap away and what the hell is the point of a cleaning fee? did they want to me make the bed, blankets and sweep every nook and cranny?! 

The owner did state she wish she would have gotten photos of the place before leaving a bad review and I told her she should have consulted with her guests before doing so. 

Not cool . 

[Sarah977]

@Myrna46  Of course I can't speak to the state you left the place in, I would have no way of knowing. But "I guess we knocked over a lamp and a crystal" and "I guess some items fell" ??? Obviously you knew this happened, so "I guess" doesn't make sense. Yes, we all have accidents from time to time. Even if it was an accident, though, simply leaving without mentioning it is not the type of behavior hosts, or anyone, appreciates-it's rude and will pretty much always lead to a bad review. If you break things that belong to someone else, whether it's because you were being careless, or because it was just an accident, you need to let the host know. Decent guests who damage or break things will send a message to the host saying they are sorry and offering to pay for what they damaged. Hosts understand that accidents sometimes happen, but don't write bad reviews for guests who take responsiblity and do the right thing. 

[Kevin1322]

Hi @Nu0 

Yes it's crap isn't it. But it's all there is. I wish listings showed the real price right away too.

I'm a host, but some of the cleaning fees are silly. In their defence they are looking for longer staying guests .

[Courtney301]

I'm absolutely ok paying a cleaning fee. But when the stay is 1 night in a tiny bedroom or cottage in an already questionable area of town and you wanna charge me $150 when it would normally take a cleaning person no more than 30 minutes tops for an extremely deep clean, there's a problem.

When I see ridiculous fees compared all these aspects I keep scrolling. I also think that on the main search page this fee should be combined with the night stay. But when opening up the details of the stay and booking, there should be a breakdown showing the fee separately. Just for ease of comparison with the search filters.

[Sarah977]

@Courtney301  I'm not sure how much deep cleaning you've done, or what you refer to as deep cleaning, but I list a small bedroom with private bath and it takes me no less than an hour and a half to do a thorough cleaning of that space. It doesn't matter if the guest left it clean and tidy- my routine is always the same- I clean everything from ceiling to floor and every square inch. I sterilize the bathroom sink, oilet, faucet handles, door knobs, light switches. If I also have to do the things which don't need to be done every time, like wash the windows, clean the ceiling fan and take down the curtains and wash them, it'll take me 2 hours. No one can thoroughly clean even a small room in 30 minutes, unless there is nothing in the room- no furniture, just an empty room. 

That said, $150 cleaning fee seems excessive for a small space that only sleeps one or two people. Personally i don't charge a cleaning fee at all- I just have a 3 day minimum, so that hour and a half cleaning time is spread out over at least a 3 night stay.

[Derek307]

You are absolutely spot on with this post. As a consumer, I only want to know what the price is for the rental. I'll go as far as to say I don't care what you charge me, just tell me up front so that I can filter you out right away. In my experience, I put in my criteria for a search, I see some I like, then I have to click on it only to find out the room is 50 and the cleaning fee is 150. I'm not sure if this company does user testing, but I can't image any user would say "this is a great feature, I really like to do all this extra work to find out what the bottom dollar cost will be." It's totally stupid. Airbnb is great, but at one point Blockbuster was the hottest place in town. So was Toys-r-us and Sears. Adapt or die, and always, ALWAYS, consider the user experience (UX) when designing a product. 

[Marilyn348]

I think there is an assumption that part of the cost of lodging is that you would begin your stay in a reasonably clean setting.   For hotels, motels, etc, part of your price is the cost it takes to clean the space between clients.  I do think it is BS that they are tacking on cleaning fees.  Just charge what it takes to be competitive  and control your costs.  It used to be that AirBnb was a win win.  Regular person with an extra room or house could make a little money and client could save a bunch over traditional lodging. Now that is not the case.

[Stephanie1556]

I couldn't agree more. I see a lot of justification for the cleaning fee, but the simple fact is, if I have a budget of, say, $250 for a 2-night stay, and find all these listings for $60-$100 a night, but can't find a single one that isn't under $300 or $400 total with all the additional fees, I'm not going to book, period. 

I *do* think this is a deceptive practice, whatever the logic, because it seems designed to reel you in and have you look at a place you think is in your budget and then perhaps make an impulse decision to book even though it's really twice the cost per night as you thought. If hosts want to list the cleaning fee as a separate fee in the price breakdown, fine, but I think it should be factored in to the initial listing price so I don't end up clicking on 20 different places that the filter shows as being in my budget that really aren't.

And this does seem new—I've been using Airbnb for about five years or so and I'm only just noticing this in the last year or less. I used to actually be able to get an Airbnb for something close to the basic listing price instead of finding with nearly every place I look at, the final cost of a two-night stay is what the initial listing suggests would be the expected cost of a three-night stay.

Of course, Airbnb hosts don't care that they're going to be wasting tons of people's time as long as their places are ultimately getting booked. But I can say that at least for me, I'm a lot more likely to click "Book" if the total cost for a two-night stay doesn't essentially add one night's cost to the price I saw on the initial listing. Having gone through this recently in hopes of booking a two-night birthday stay, then giving up, it's soured me on Airbnb and made me much less likely to start my search for lodging on Airbnb than before.

[Steve2701]

Lot of listings i have seen with cleaning fees that almost match the nightly rates seems really absurd to me. If you're going to charge me half my stay for a cleaning fee, how about I clean the place myself for free? Most these places are not 5 star hotel quality anyways and it doesn't make sense why they need 5 star cleaning service fees.

[Charlene236]

I am beyond irritated by the practice of exorbitant cleaning fees. While booking a 1 night stay in Maui, I routinely saw pricing where the initial price doubled or even tripled with the cleaning fee. Example  $117 with $320 cleaning fee or $143 with a $273 cleaning fee. So a room advertised $100-$200 ends up costing $500-$600 for ONE DAY! You can’t tell me that 2 people staying in a 1 br condo for less than 24 hours routinely requires a cleaning fee 200-300% of the rate price?! I understand if it was a cleaning deposit or if it was a daily rate even but this is OBVIOUSLY just a way to deceive consumers. It makes comparing pricing incredibly difficult as fees range broadly and search/filter functions only include the advertised rate. It also rewards those who are deceptive because their “low” rate comes up first in price searches while more honest hosts with reasonable cleaning fees appear to cost more even if in fact the total price is far less. I’m new to AirBnB so I don’t know if this is a recent thing or has always been the case, but it’s enough to make me avoid vacation rentals altogether. It’s even worse than resort fees (which are already kind of shady) because at least those are somewhat similar in price among similar hotels and so you can still make a comparison knowing any of the hotels will cost the same amount more. But the completely inconsistent and unregulated way cleaning fees are included or “property fees” (whatever the f- that means) are added on other sites is downright deceptive.

[Paul154]

Have you used the map feature?

They price everything in the map so that not only can you search for area, but total price.

As for keeping cleaning fees separate, it is a very good idea.  You understand what you are paying for.

Don't you want someplace that takes time to clean your room?

It does cost money and time to put clean sheets on the bed, shine up the bathroom... charging this fee allows the host to recoup this fee from a one night stay guest.  If you want a lower cleaning fee, extend your stay so that it averages out over more days.

Also with a cleaning fee, you the guest have a valid complaint and power if the room is not cleaned well. Kind of like a tip.

It's all good.